SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk is expected to take the stand in a shareholder trial on Wednesday in San Francisco, where he’s accused of making false and misleading statements that drove down Twitter’s stock price before he bought the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022.

The lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, a few weeks before Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized. It claims Musk violated federal securities laws by making false, public statements that “were carefully calculated to drive down the price of Twitter stock.”

The billionaire Tesla CEO reached a deal to buy Twitter and take it private in April 2022. On May 13, however, he declared his plan “temporarily on hold” and said he needs to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform. Twitter’s stock tumbled as a result. A few days later, he tweeted that the deal “cannot go forward” and claimed that almost 20% of Twitter accounts were “fake,” according to the lawsuit.

Musk’s May 13 tweet — “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” — was “false because the buyout was not, in fact, ‘temporarily on hold,’” the lawsuit says. That’s because Twitter did not agree to put the deal on hold, and there was nothing in the merger agreement the two parties signed that allowed Musk to put it on hold, according to the lawsuit.

In the following weeks, Musk continued to try to delay or get out of the deal, which the lawsuit claims he did in the form of false, disparaging statements about Twitter’s business that drove the San Francisco company’s stock down sharply.

In July 2022, Musk doubled down on the bots issue and said he would abandon his offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts. That’s even though the lawsuit notes that Musk waived due diligence for his “take it or leave it” offer to buy Twitter. That means he waived his right to look at the company’s nonpublic finances.

The stock closed at $36.81 on July 8, when Musk tweeted he was abandoning the deal over the fake accounts issue. That’s 32% below Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share.

“To try to renegotiate the price or delay the merger, Musk made materially false and misleading statements and omissions, and engaged in a scheme to deceive the market, all in violation of the law,” the lawsuit says.

The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.

Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the deal, and Musk countersued. On Oct. 4, Musk offered to go through with his original proposal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which Twitter accepted. The deal closed later that month. In the ensuing months, Musk slashed the company’s workforce, gutted its trust and safety team and rolled back content moderation policies. In July 2023, he renamed Twitter as X.

This isn’t the first time that Musk has been dragged into court to defend himself against allegations of duping investors with his social media posts. Three years ago, Musk spent about eight hours testifying in a San Francisco federal trial about his plans to buy Tesla — the electric automaker that he still runs as publicly traded company — for $420 per share in a proposed 2018 deal that never materialized. A nine-member jury absolved Musk of wrongdoing in that case.

Putting a gimbal (the motorised arm) in a phone doesn’t immediately make it a robot. That comes from the sort of sentience it offers. Rather than just using the camera to take pictures, it’s as much a way to control the phone as it is a method of capture, with the AI behind the camera giving it a level of personality. That’s the robot part.

Phones have been moving towards a more personalised experience over the past few years, with the learning ability of AI allowing for responses that are specific to you. Apps like ChatGPT and Gemini enable long conversations to develop ideas, while also recognising what the camera can see.

Honor makes it more interactive, with the camera making its own physical movements that reflect what it can see and what you’re doing. At a basic level, that includes following your face so that you’re always in the frame of a video call. The camera can also dance along to music, nod, shake and look around.

What can the Honor Robot Phone actually do?

There are some simple things that the flexibility of this camera allows. Imagine you’re cooking and need to move around while talking to a friend on a video call, for instance. With the Robot Phone, Honor says you’ll always be in the picture.

As a camera, there’s loads it can do. You can place the phone down on a surface, and the camera can rotate, locate you and take photos. You don’t have to worry about propping it up somewhere, either; the gimbal takes care of all of that. I saw an Honor staff member holding the phone to capture video, with the gimbal providing all sorts of holding options and stability beyond what you’d get from a normal smartphone.

None of this is as interesting as the “digital companion” features that incorporate the use of AI. I’ve seen the Robot Phone dancing along to music, I’ve seen it pretending to sleep like a cute animal, waiting to be woken up to “play with you”. Honor calls this “emotional body language”, and this is what makes it different from any other smartphone.

With AI behind the lens, the Robot Phone can provide feedback, so you can ask it if you’re wearing a nice outfit, giving personality that you just don’t get from any other device right now.

Of course, whether you trust the response or not is a different matter.

A gimbal is a motorised arm that allows freedom of movement through three axes: pan, tilt and roll. It offers stabilisation to eliminate things like shake and allows for smooth movements of the camera in all directions. Gimbals are common in professional video recording equipment and have recently made the jump to things like drones and handheld capture devices, including the DJI Osmo Pocket.

On the Honor Robot Phone, this miniaturised gimbal flips up from the rear, giving one of the cameras a wide degree of movement. The camera functions like an eye, which is where the “robot” name comes from. It’s like something from Star Wars or Pixar’s Wall-E.

Honor says it has reduced the size of the motors in the gimbal by 70 per cent so that it would fit into the back of the phone, with a sliding panel that covers the arm when not in use. When stowed, the phone is roughly the size of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, with a design that’s not too different, either.

The true crime documentary returns tonight with a deeply disturbing two-part special about an investigation that shocked even experienced detectives

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The much-loved Channel 4 true crime documentary is poised to make a return to television screens tonight with an episode that promises to be “deeply disturbing”.

24 Hours in Police Custody has garnered a loyal following since its debut in 2014. The groundbreaking documentary immerses viewers in the high-stakes world of criminal investigations, following detectives as they pursue justice for serious crimes.

The programme offers a glimpse into the real-life drama unfolding within a local police force, as detectives race against time to uncover horrifying truths. Over the years, the show has earned the accolade of being the “best ever”, with viewers eagerly anticipating new episodes.

In recent weeks, fans of 24 Hours in Police Custody were disappointed when the show appeared to have been taken off air and replaced with a new series on Channel 4. However, tonight (March 4), two episodes will be broadcast from 9pm, back to back.

Entitled 24 Hours in Police Custody: The Butcher of Suburbia, this two-part instalment delves into the 2024 murder of a 74-year-old woman. Viewers will watch as detectives investigate the killer who dismembered and concealed her body, initially claiming she had moved away, reports Wales Online.

For the first part, set to air at 9pm on Channel 4, the broadcaster teases: “The landmark series brings us the gripping inside story of the murder of a 74-year-old woman – and the killer’s macabre efforts to conceal her death.”

Promising a “deeply disturbing” episode, part two reveals: “The suspect admits to the murder of a 74-year-old woman. But a deeply disturbing tale that shocks experienced detectives has only just begun.”

The two instalments tonight are repeat episodes that previously shocked viewers. Taking to social media, one person said: “Omg that episode of 24 hours in police custody – the butcher of suburbia is HARROWING.”

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Another wrote: “Shocking two-part documentary. When a 74-year-old woman is murdered, police uncover the killer’s macabre efforts to hide her death.”

A third added: “Watching the butcher or suburbia episode of 24 hours in police custody. Wow!”. A fourth penned: “Pleased that “24 Hours In Police Custody” returns tonight (C4 9pm). It’s a consistently good series.”

One person commented: “Watched another true life horror. 24 hours in Police Custody: Butcher of Suburbia.”

Another echoed: “#24hoursinpolicecustody is undoubtedly one of the best programs on TV. The Butcher of Suburbia…the chilling calmness, openness, honesty about killing and chopping up a 70-year-old lady. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.”

24 Hours in Police Custody returns tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm and 10pm. Episodes are also available to stream online.

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website.

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James Nielson, 41, was sentenced to prison after a three-week stalking campaign that included leaving a note on his former partner’s door revealing their affair and demanding paternity tests

A 12-year-long affair ended in acrimony, culminating in a man pounding on his former mistress’s door, demanding a paternity test.

James Nielson, 41, pursued his ex for three weeks, insisting on DNA tests to establish the paternity of two of her three children, born during their lengthy liaison.

His relentless pursuit involved late-night visits to her home, banging on the door and leaving a note for her husband revealing their secret relationship.

At Liverpool Crown Court today, March 3, prosecutor Lahraib Iqbal stated that Nielson and the victim had known each other for 15 years. Despite marrying her husband in 2013, she maintained an intermittent affair with Nielson, blocking his number during their breaks.

On December 4 last year, the woman awoke to discover 37 messages from Nielson on her phone. As she left for work that morning, she noticed Nielson tailing her.

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She instructed him to leave her be and carried on, but upon reaching her workplace at 8.40am, Nielson confronted her again, only departing when a passer-by intervened, reports the Liverpool Echo.

At 11.30pm that night, whilst at home in Liverpool with her husband and children, Nielson began hammering on her door. He slipped a note through the letterbox divulging the affair before leaving the premises – only to return in his car at 3am, honking his horn.

Ms Iqbal stated: “At 10.30am (December 5) the defendant was spotted sat outside the address, beeping his horn and waving at (the victim) from his car.”

Three days later, around 6.20am on December 8, the victim once more departed her home for work when Nielson confronted her. After telling him to “go away”, she climbed into her vehicle and set off towards Crosby.

However, Nielson pursued her in his black Volkswagen Golf, forcing her to pull over to prevent a collision with another motorist.

Ms Iqbal continued: “He went around to the front of her car and with his fists began to bang on the bonnet of her car.”

The woman subsequently contacted police.

Nielson, of Carriage Grove in Bootle, entered guilty pleas to stalking, driving whilst disqualified, and driving without a licence. He additionally admitted two violations of a 12-month suspended sentence imposed in September 2025 for involvement in cannabis supply and production.

The violations comprised the stalking and motoring offences, alongside his failure to comply with a curfew requirement between December 1 and December 8 2025.

‘Struggled to lose love of his life’

Olivia Bell, defending, told the court: “I would urge the court to accept his remorse is genuine. he regrets any distress caused to (the woman). I in no way seek to minimise his behaviour but simply provide context for his contacting the complainant. The accused and the complainant had been entangled in an intermittent relationship for 12 years, during which the complainant gave birth to three children.

The defendant, however, has raised doubts over the paternity of two of these children. Whilst his actions were unquestionably inappropriate, this context is provided to shed light on why he repeatedly reached out to the victim.”

She stated: “There were no threats of violence. Simply this was a man who struggled to lose what he called the love of his life following as 12-year affair and wanted to seek information about the paternity of the children.”

Nielson’s criminal record includes 11 previous convictions for 21 offences, many of which are driving-related.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Louise Brandon observed: “It’s quite clear the fear and distress you caused has had a physical and emotional impact on (the victim). It’s affected how she conducted her day to day activities. She has incurred expenses and she has described the impact these actions have had on her life.

“I’m quite satisfied that the stalking is a high culpability offence. This was a persistent action over a long period. You followed the complainant and your behaviour was conducted in a way to maximise her fear and distress, including turning up at her family home.”

Nielson received an 18-week prison term for stalking and eight weeks for the driving offences. The judge also activated 39 weeks of his existing suspended sentence, resulting in a total custodial term of 65 weeks – equivalent to one year and two months.

Additionally, he was disqualified from driving for a total of 115 weeks, whilst a restraining order was imposed preventing him from contacting the victim for seven years.

Donald Trump has branded Iran ‘a country running on fumes’ and doesn’t care if they participate in the summer’s World Cup.

Iran were one of the first nations to qualify for a tournament that is scheduled to start in less than 100 days’ time but their involvement is now under threat as a result of the US-Israeli strikes and subsequent retaliation as the regime clings to power.

In the wake of the initial wave of the attacks, Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj confirmed Team Melli, who are due to play three games in America against Egypt, Belgium and New Zealand, were far from guaranteed to take their place at what promises to be the biggest World Cup in history.

Taj said: ‘With what happened today and with that attack by the United States, it is unlikely that we can look forward to the World Cup, but the sports chiefs are the ones who must decide on that.’

With a military campaign still ongoing, Trump was asked whether it would concern him were a nation of Iran’s stature to pull out.

He told Politico, the American digital newspaper: ‘I really don’t care. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.’

FIFA are continuing to monitor the situation after Iran were the only country absent from a planning summit for World Cup participants, held in Atalanta.

Mattias Grafstrom, the Fifa secretary-general, speaking at the International FA Board meeting near Cardiff, said on Saturday: ‘We had a meeting today and we will monitor developments around all issues around the world. Our focus is on a safe World Cup with all the teams participating.’

Who Could replace Iran at the World Cup?

Iraq are due to compete in a continental play-off against Bolivia or Suriname later this month with a place at the World Cup up for grabs.

At this stage, the most likely scenario, should Iran withdraw, would see Iraq take their place with the United Arab Emirates replacing them in the play-offs.

Iran’s women’s team, meanwhile, are currently competing at the Asia Cup in Australia and forward Sara Didar struggled to hold back tears when asked her about the escalating conflict in her country, as coach Marziyeh Jafari said her players were doing their best to focus on football, despite concern for their families back home.

The fighting erupted after the US and Israel launched air strikes on Iran over the weekend, killing the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, after which Iran launched missiles at countries on the Arabian Peninsula.

‘Obviously we’re all concerned and sad at what has happened to Iran and our families in Iran and our loved ones, but I really hope it’s very good for our country, to have good news ahead and I hope that my country would be strongly alive,’ 21-year-old Didar said on Wednesday.

Iran lost their opening Group A game to South Korea 3-0 on Monday and face hosts Australia on Thursday at the Gold Coast Stadium.

Australia midfielder Amy Sayer earlier praised the courage of the Iranian players for competing in the continental tournament despite their homeland facing political unrest and military strikes.

Coach Jafari said the Iranian team wanted to make their Iranian-Australian supporters proud.

‘We have so much concern regarding our families and the people in Iran,’ she said. ‘Nobody loves war … but here, we are coming to play football professionally and we do our best to concentrate on our football and match ahead.

‘Iranian-Australians here support us, we are so happy to have a country that all the people are united and supportive and we really love them also as well and we’ll do our best to make them proud.’

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Looking at the combined metrics of Scotland compared to 10 top leagues around the continent, there are more than 35% more heading actions in Scotland.

The figures may not come as a shock to those who watch Scottish football on a regular basis, but they do throw up questions about what it means for the discussion around safety.

Since the death of former England centre-forward Jeff Astle from dementia in 2002, scientists have increasingly linked repeated head impacts to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which can also lead to neurodegenerative disease.

In January, a coroner investigating the death of former Scotland and Manchester Utd centre-half Gordon McQueen said: “I am satisfied that, on the balance of probability, repeatedly heading footballs contributed to his developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy.”

A field study by Glasgow University in 2019 found that former professional footballers were three-and-a-half times more likely to develop neurodegenerative disease. That figure was even higher for defenders.

“I actually looked, a few years ago, at the heading rates across World Cups, going all the way back to 1966,” Dr Willie Stewart, who led the study, said.

“The stats actually showed that the amount of headers in games were increasing over that 50-year period, rather than declining, as some people might have thought – so I’m not too surprised.”

In 2022, the Scottish FA introduced a number of changes aimed at minimising the risk.

Heading the ball was banned for under-12s and, in the professional game, there was a ban on heading the ball during training the day before and after a match.

Clubs were also told to limit training exercises that involve repeated heading to one session per week.

The SFA’s chief medical officer Dr Jonny Gordon said: “The Scottish FA has led the way in research into head trauma in sport, working in partnership with the University of Glasgow in a landmark 2020 field study and additional research published in 2022.

“We will continue to monitor guidance based on evolving research as part of the association’s commitment to ensuring the national game is a safe and enjoyable environment for all players.”

The earliest mass graves in Europe date back just over 7,000 years. They reveal brutal evidence for violence beyond the simple act of killing. The motives for these events are probably diverse but consistently highlight an intention to kill large numbers of enemies across sex and age ranges.

Our study of a 2,850-year-old massacre and resulting mass grave at Gomolava (modern day Serbia) shows the nature of mass killings evolving. Comprised mostly of women and girls, the grave suggests a shift in prehistoric violence. Here, women and children were not collateral victims, but deliberate targets. Looking at who was killed and how they were related can tell us about changes in ancient attitudes to killing combatants – but also choices in targeting non-combatants.

The site at Gomolava, first excavated in 1971, is the second of two contemporary mass graves. It contained 77 people. Our recent study has uncovered the circumstances surrounding their death.

We found that the original theory – that an epidemic had killed people from a single settlement – is not supported by genetic and isotopic evidence. Our data instead showed that these people descended from the wider region but came from different settlements. Except for a mother and her two daughters, there were no close genetic relationships.

Archaeology and mass graves

Archaeology sheds light on the deep history of conflict. When killings are targeted, mass graves can tell us which members of a society were displaced and killed. Then, we pose the question – why them?

When we study violence in past societies, archaeologists seek to understand how and why things like discord, ambition, belief or rivalry could lead people to plan to kill others. While archaeology cannot provide ready solutions to modern crises, it helps us to better understand the immediate and longer term societal impact of violence, and how more peaceful times were achieved and managed.

Our detailed study of the bones of the dead in the Gomolava grave exposed a brutal story – these people were mostly killed through blows to the head.

All the bodies had been crammed into a repurposed old pit house. This structure, once part of a small village, consisted of a sunken pit with low walls and a roof. This hole provided a ready space to stow the dead.

It is unclear if that was expedient disposal, or putting them in what was once a home. However, these people were buried respectfully with some of their personal possessions and other offerings. Most of the dead were women and children. Studies of the children’s teeth revealed a disproportionate number were girls. In other prehistoric mass graves, children and young women are often underrepresented because of their value as slaves or for reproduction. Gomolava is a clear exception, inverting this pattern.

In comparison, the Neolithic sites of Asparn-Scheltz, Austria (which contains approximately 200 bodies), and Potočani, Croatia (41 bodies) also contained people with few genetic connections. However, children were underrepresented and males and females equally present.

At Koszyce, Poland, 15 genetically closely related women, young men and children were buried together. These events highlight larger scale conflicts and often relate to periods of exceptional social change, such as the spread of different material conventions and, at times, inward migration of genetically distinct people.

Why women and children?

Mass graves have long informed us of the scale of past violent events. Combining archaeology with newer genetic and isotopic methods better reveals demographics, which has revolutionised the ways we can access stories of the victims. At Gomolava, this enabled us to explore the nature, social context and strategic purpose of this mass killing event. In our study, we suggest the women and children in the Gomolava grave were not incidental victims on the periphery of conflict or its aftermath, but primary targets.

Selectively killing these women and children ended family lines and cut short the future of communities. Possible motives were retribution or establishing dominance in the region. This represents a sea change in the nature of violent conflict, potentially a case where previous taboos on killing were no longer exercised. Though this is only one site in one specific time and place, it demonstrates how the treatment of mass killings can highlight major changes in attitudes to violence as a social strategy.

There is a tension in archaeology between those who argue that violence was a commonplace means of exercising social power and those that concentrate more on characterising the many alternatives to violence for asserting control or authority. In our view, both likely coexisted. In the absence of formal legal systems, the ability to fight could itself function as a deterrent. Violent conflict was therefore an extreme – but ever-present – means of resolving inter-group disputes.

The targeting of women and children in Gomolava by people from outside their community provides a bridge between perspectives, beyond a view of men enforcing violence over other men on the battlefield. It reveals how those who shaped social trajectories across many fields of social discourse were central to conflict resolution, whether that be peaceful or through dominance and extermination. We argued that different groups were competing over land ownership in this region, and mass killing of enemies was a strategic choice to assert dominance or hegemony over a community spread across many settlements, likely including Gomolava.

Whether such graves represent ethnically, culturally or socially different groups in conflict, the brutality of their selective killing remains a common thread. In seeking to understand how peace was brokered and managed, and how different forms of power played roles in this, working to better understand who was targeted and killed in episodes of violence is a crucial first step.

Our comparative approach takes mass graves beyond specific times and places and shows how we may have underestimated the scale, ferocity and purpose of short episodes of violence.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 was confirmed at a commercial poultry farm to the north-west of Pickering yesterday (March 3).

The three-kilometre protection zone imposed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) from 6.40pm last night until further notice also covers villages including Wrelton, Cropton, Appleton-le-Moors and Sinnington, as well as part of Aislaby.

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A ten-kilometre surveillance zone has been introduced for an area which includes Pickering, Kirkbymoorside, Newton-on-Rawcliffe and Kirby Mills.

The three-kilometre and ten-kilometre zones were published by Defra last night (March 3) (Image: Defra)

Businesses which keep poultry or captive birds operating within protection zones and surveillance zones are required to carry out a range of measures including the recording of movement of visitors to the site, poultry and poultry movements and of other captive birds.

All poultry birds on the premises will be humanely culled, Defra said.

The news follows multiple outbreaks in January in the York area.

More information and the full range of measures imposed can be found on the Defra website.

After the president of Iran’s football federation suggested the country could boycott the World Cup following the US and Israeli strikes on the country, Donald Trump has said he “really doesn’t care” if Iran play in the tournament.

According to multiple outlets, including the Associated Press, Iran’s top football official Mehdi Taj told sports news portal Varzesh3: “What is certain is that after these attacks, it’s hard to look at the World Cup with hope.”

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The tournament takes place across multiple cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada this summer. Iran’s group games are scheduled to be played in the US, between Los Angeles and Seattle.

“It’s not possible to say exactly, but there will certainly be a response,” Taj also said, according to Reuters. “This will surely be studied by the country’s high-ranking sports officials and there will be a decision on what’s going to happen.”

Fifa continue to monitor the situation. Secretary general Mattias Grafstrom said on Saturday: “It’s too early to comment, but we will monitor developments around the world that could affect the tournament.”

Iran were the only nation to be missing from a World Cup planning event participating teams, held this week in Atlanta. Trump told Politico on Tuesday: “I really don’t care. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.”

Could Iran boycott the World Cup?

Iran are scheduled to play two World Cup games in Los Angeles and another in Seattle. They will face New Zealand and Belgium in LA on June 15 and June 21, followed by the match against Egypt in Seattle on June 26.

But little is known about how Iran could respond to the US and Israeli strikes in a sporting context. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has been killed – while Trump has said the strikes could continue for the next four weeks. Iranian officials have ruled out negotiating with the US, as well.

There has never been a boycott of the World Cup on political grounds and the last World Cup boycott was 60 years ago, when African teams refused to play in protest of receiving just one-third of a qualifying berth.

There has never before been a situation where a World Cup host has attacked a qualified team so close to the start of the tournament, with just four months to go before the opening game.

As the Independent’s Miguel Delaney highlighted, several European countries discussed a World Cup boycott when the United States threatened to annex Greenland in January.

Even before the strikes, there was political tension over Iran’s involvement in the tournament due to visa restrictions. The country’s football federation followed through on a threat to boycott Novembers’s World Cup draw in Washington DC.

At the time, Iranian Football Federation spokesman Amir Mehdi Alavi said the US had granted visas to four members of the Iranian delegation, including head coach Amir Ghalenoei, but had not issued one to its football president Mehdi Taj.

The boycott of the World Cup draw, Alavi said, followed “unsportsmanlike actions” by one of the host countries.

And the situation has only escalated since then. Athletes, teams members and family members were previously excluded from Trump’s travel ban but the US government could also decide to restrict Iran from competing at all if they cited security risks.

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What could happen if Iran don’t play?

In Fifa’s World Cup regulations, published last year and before the qualifying stage of the tournament was complete, it states: “If any Participating Member Association withdraws and/or is excluded from the Fifa World Cup 26, Fifa shall decide on the matter at its sole discretion and take whatever action is deemed necessary. Fifa may decide to replace the Participating Member Association in question with another association.”

Iran qualified automatically for the World Cup, with the United Arab Emirates losing out on an automatic qualification spot and subsequently going out in the play-off rounds. In the event of Iran not playing in the World Cup, they would be the closest replacement. Iraq could only be an option, if they do not come through their intercontinental play-off against either Bolivia or Suriname in Mexico later this month.

But the uncertainty in the Gulf as a result of the US strikes means that replacing Iran with either the UAE or Iraq could be far from straight-forward, and Fifa’s regulations indicate that they could do whatever they would like, anyway.

There is some precedent from last summer when Mexican side Club Leon were kicked out of the Club World Cup due to multi-club ownership rules. Fifa then announced a play-off between Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and Mexican team Club America which was won by LAFC, granting them access to the tournament.

Fifa’s World Cup regulations also state: “Fifa has the right to cancel, reschedule or relocate one or more matches (or the entire FIFA World Cup 26) for any reason at its sole discretion, including as a result of force majeure or due to health, safety or security concerns.”

Seemingly, there is therefore the possibility that Iran’s games could be moved from the US; but there is also the possibility that the US and Iran could play each other at the tournament. This would happen if both teams were runners-up in Group D and Group G respectively, with that fixture scheduled to be played in Arlington, Texas.

A rule change for primary voting in two Texas counties created mass confusion Tuesday that eventually led to a state Supreme Court ruling, threats of more legal action and the potential that an untold number of voters could find themselves disenfranchised.

The chaos had the most direct potential impact on the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The county with the greatest number of affected voters includes Dallas and is the home base for Rep. Jasmine Crockett, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who was in a tight race with state lawmaker James Talarico.

Crockett told supporters Tuesday night that the race can’t be settled without the results from Dallas County.

“I can tell you, people were disenfranchised,” she said.

The unfolding chaos — first over the new voting rules, and then over the court decisions and whether late ballots would be counted — stemmed from a change by local Republicans that is unique to Texas’ primary system, but also hinted at the type of uncertainty that many have feared lies ahead for November’s midterm elections.

A Republican change to the primaries leads to ‘severe’ confusion

The problems in Texas began when voters in two counties — Dallas and Williamson, north of Austin — were turned away at polling locations and directed to different precincts after a recent change in how the primary is conducted.

In Dallas County, a judge ordered polls to remain open for two hours past the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time, citing “voter confusion so severe” that it caused the website of the county election office to crash. The judge was acting on a petition filed by the local Democratic Party in a heavily left-leaning county. Democrats in Williamson said they succeeded in getting two precincts to stay open late.

Later in the evening, the Texas Supreme Court acted on requests by the Texas attorney general’s office and stayed both decisions. Its brief orders said ballots cast by voters in both counties who were not in line by the 7 p.m. scheduled close of polls should be separated. The number of ballots affected could not immediately be determined.

Renea Hicks, a longtime Texas appellate lawyer, said the Supreme Court’s action was preliminary and does not say whether the ballots will eventually be counted. That’s something the court will have to sort out in the coming days, he said.

“That doesn’t mean ‘throw them away.’ It doesn’t meant they won’t count,” he said. “We don’t know what it means.”

In both counties, voters had been allowed to cast their ballot anywhere in their county for years. But for this primary, the local Republican parties opted against countywide voting. State law says both major parties have to agree to the countywide system for it to be in effect.

That meant that on Tuesday all voters could cast ballots only at their assigned precinct.

Voters separated by party

Both Crockett and Talarico denounced the effect of the change on voters, with Crockett saying it was an “effort to suppress the vote.” Talarico’s campaign aid it was “deeply concerned” about the reports of voters showing up at polling locations and being sent elsewhere. He told supporters later that evening, as ballots were still being tallied, that every vote must be counted.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that voting locations also might be specific to someone’s party affiliation, said Nic Solorzano, a spokesperson for the Dallas County Elections Department.

“We’re seeing a lot of people that are going to their vote centers that they usually go to … and not realizing they can’t do that anymore. They have to go to their precinct-based location,” he said.

The extensions in Dallas applied only to Democratic voting precincts. Voting also was extended for an hour in El Paso County after problems with voter check-in systems earlier in the day.

Attempt to inform voters

Texas was one of three states kicking off the 2026 midterm elections Tuesday, along with North Carolina and Arkansas. Voting otherwise went fairly smoothly, except for a problem with electronic poll books in one rural North Carolina county that prompted the state elections board to delay the release of statewide results by an hour.

Tomas Sanchez, a student at Dallas College, was among those who showed up at a voting location on campus to cast his ballot in Texas’ Democratic primary. But he was under a “mistaken impression” and told that he needed to vote at his assigned precinct, a location about 6 miles (about 10 kilometers) away and closer to his neighborhood.

“This is something that we were really concerned about, honestly,” Solorzano said. He added that after nearly seven years of voters being able to cast their ballots anywhere in the county, “then we kind of had to retool our entire operation to go back to precinct-based voting for Election Day.”

The county elections department has been putting up signs, running ads and sending text messages and mailers to make people aware of the change. On Election Day former poll workers were stationed outside voting locations with tablets to help people find the correct place to cast their ballot.

Voters turned away by the hundreds

While Solorzano said his department was not keeping track of how many people were been turned away, local Democrats said the number was significant.

Brenda Allen, executive director of the Dallas Democratic Party, said her offices were swamped by hundreds of calls from voters of both parties trying to find their precincts. She noted that congressional districts in the county also were remapped in Texas’ mid-decade redistricting and that new precinct lines were only finalized in December, leaving little time to inform voters.

“Lots of reports of people being turned away, hundreds of people unable to vote. Both parties are affected by this,” Allen said. “It’s not great.”

In Williamson County, the local Democratic Party headquarters was slammed by calls, executive director Madison Dickinson said.

“We’re having significant problems with the precinct-level voting,” she said, adding that, like in Dallas, even Republicans were confused by the change and were calling the Democratic Party for help.

Republicans were less vocal about the changes online, although the Dallas County Republican Party posted a link showing voters where to find their assigned polling places. The Williamson County Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

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Associated Press writers John Hanna and Jonathan J. Cooper contributed.